As women age, key breast cells ignore their surroundings, Berkeley Lab scientists find
Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have gained more insights into why older women are more susceptible to breast cancer. They found that as women age, the cells responsible for maintaining healthy breast tissue stop responding to their immediate surroundings, including mechanical cues that should prompt them to suppress nearby tumors.(more…)
An international team of researchers has discovered 13 new regions of the genome associated with the timing of menopause.
These genes shed light on the biological pathways involved in reproductive lifespan and will provide insights into conditions connected to menopause, such as breast cancer and heart disease.
Menopause is a major hormonal change that affects most women when they are in their early 50s. The timing of menopause can have a huge impact on fertility, as well as influencing the risk of a range of common diseases such as breast cancer. It has been known for some time that genetic factors influenced the onset of menopause, however until recently very few genes had been identified.
In the new study, published in the journal Nature Genetics on 22 January 2012, Dr Anna Murray, University of Exeter, Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD) Dr John Perry, PCMD and WTCHG, University of Oxford, and dozens of international collaborators, examined the genomes of over 50,000 women. They identified 13 novel gene regions associated with menopause onset, and confirmed four previously identified. Most of the 17 regions include genes related to DNA damage/repair or the immune system, whilst others are linked to hormonal regulation. (more…)
*Study examines biology underlying link between tenderness, cancer risk*
Post-menopausal women who experience breast tenderness after starting combination hormone therapy have a higher risk of breast cancer than women who don’t, a study by researchers with UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has shown. One reason for this, they now say, may be that these women’s breasts are becoming more dense.
Such new-onset tenderness was found to be more pronounced after the start of combination estrogen-and-progestin therapy than with estrogen therapy alone. The link between new-onset tenderness and changes in breast density also was more pronounced in women on combination therapy, said the study’s first author, Dr. Carolyn Crandall, a UCLA professor of general internal medicine and a scientist with the Jonsson Cancer Center. (more…)
